


i wanted to tell you

by sunwardhoseok



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Attempted Angst, Best Friends to Lovers, Confessions, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I’m sorry, Lung Cancer, M/M, mark and hyuck are best friends, mark is whipped for hyuck, mentioned!dream ensemble, mentioned!jeno, sick!donghyuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:29:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwardhoseok/pseuds/sunwardhoseok
Summary: “close your eyes and count to seven, when you wake, we’ll be in heaven.”mark had never loved donghyuck more.





	i wanted to tell you

_“Close your eyes, count to seven, when you wake, we’ll be in heaven.”_

 

    Donghyuck lets out a shaky rattle that Mark assumes is a laugh.

    “Oh, for fuck’s sake, can you choose a song that sounds a little less depressing?” he jokes, voice hoarse from weeks of silence and Mark can only crack a smile.

   

    Being in love was terrifying.

   

    Mark had figured that out by himself, but he wasn’t exactly proud of that realization. Really, it would have hurt him a lot less if he hadn’t fallen for his best friend. Whatever the universe was trying to prank him with, it wasn’t funny.

    Maybe if the boys hadn’t met in preschool, if they hadn’t clicked immediately, if they hadn’t refused to part from each others’ sides for all those 15 years, what would have happened? Mark wonders this all the time.

 

    Donghyuck’s clear, sharp laughter fades as he turns to look out the open, crystalline window by his bedside. The hospital doesn’t exactly provide its inhabitants with a perfect view, but Mark knows that Donghyuck likes it just fine.  

    Silence descends down upon the two, and nothing except the beeping of the machines attached to the needles in Donghyuck’s arm is audible. The soft pre- autumn wind flutters the primroses on Donghyuck’s bedside table, and blows a few petals off the golden flowers and onto the white bed.  

The setting sun glints off of Donghyuck’s resplendent skin, kissing his soft facial features, making him _glow_ , and Mark feels his heart drop by a few inches.

    “Mark?”

    “Yeah?”

A few moments of silence pass.

    “Am I gonna die?” Donghyuck asks so quietly it would have been a miracle for Mark to hear the question. But he does anyway.

“No, Hyuck, why would you say that?” he reaches over from his bedside seat to cup one of Donghyuck’s round cheeks.

“B-because- Doctor Oh s-said-” he chokes out, eyes welling up with shining tears, and Mark can hear his heart plummet a little more.

“No, Hyuckie, no. _Never_ ,” Mark feels the lump in his throat swell. _Oh, crap._

“Lee Donghyuck, don’t ever say that. Ever. You are the strongest person I know, and I have 15 years worth of proof. You will live. You will stay strong, stay strong for me, and our friends. I will be with you, no matter what happens, and you won’t have to be alone. I promise you. I’ll gladly stay with you for the rest of our damn lives.”

And suddenly Donghyuck is crying, Mark’s crying, and the light in the room slowly dims to darkness.

“I don’t care what he says,” Mark finally hears himself say through the blackness.

Donghyuck sniffles.

“W-what?”

“I don’t care what he says,” Mark repeats. “My dad. I don’t care about any homophobic shit he says. Fuck it.”

Then Mark leans in and Donghyuck can’t see what he’s doing until he feels soft, thin lips against his own.

They kiss tenderly at first, neither of them moving. It’s kairos, like the whole world finally sets into place.

Then Mark jumps back from the bed, crashing into the window seat as he does; eliciting a gasp from the other.

“Donghyuck- I am so sorry, I didn’t mean for you to find out this way- I’m so, _so_ sorry for doing that, holy shit,” Mark rambles into the darkness, limbs sprawled from his fall, and gets no answer from the other.

“I’m going to go now,” he gets up from his awkward position on the seat and frantically makes his way over to the door, but not before a slim, cold hand closes on his wrist.

“Mark, no, I want you to stay,” Donghyuck whispers, and pulls weakly on Mark’s arm.

Mark abruptly stops, pressing his heels into the hard tile floor.

“Just tell me when,” Donghyuck says when Mark doesn’t answer. “When you started liking me,” the younger clarifies, soft voice firmer.

Mark almost crumples to the ground in exhaustion and fear. But Donghyuck’s grip supports him, and keeps him firmly rooted to the ground.

“I- I don’t know.”

“Mark,” Donghyuck whispers. “I know my best friend. And I wouldn’t ever lie to you, either.”

Mark didn’t say a word.

“Minhyung?”

“I- I can’t,” Mark chokes out, and his eyes well up with tears again. “It’s so hard- you, you-”

“What’s wrong?”

That’s all it takes for Mark to explode.

“Donghyuck, don’t you see? Haven’t you noticed? I am in _love_ with you. I have always been, since we met in that stupid rundown preschool. Ever since you came into my hideout under the slide bawling your eyes out. Yeah, I had to comfort you. Yeah, I was the one who you decided to annoy to no end, and follow everywhere. I was also the one who became your best friend. _For 15 years. Yes,_ I was the one who finally fell in love with my fucking best friend. _Why didn’t he get it?_ That’s what I asked myself everyday after I saw you walk off with that shit-eating grin of yours, the sunlight glimmering off your skin like gold. You didn’t get it. No one did. _Would he be able to see? Maybe today would be the day._

It never happened. But I love you so much, it hurts me to see you smiling somewhere else, because it’s almost never me. I watched you break down in front of me, bruises peppering your skin, chest heaving with pants and sobs, clothes ripped from your mother’s knives. I was jealous because of that kid _Jeno,_ because he was making you happy, when _I_ should’ve been doing that, instead of silently bearing your pain too.

Lee Donghyuck, my haechan, my everything, my best friend, you’re my awe -inspiring angel; strong, persistent, resilient, talented, kind, sarcastic, so, very intelligent, radiant; sunny, lovable, caring, trustworthy; beautiful, and my world. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you this time, I’m so, so sorry. I tried to protect you from your parents, from the shit you’ve been through, from the abuse and neglect. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it there in time- oh, please don’t go, Hyuck, you can’t, you _can’t,_ I can’t live without my best friend-“

Mark breaks off, heaving sobs cracking his voice, and he cries and cries, tears staining his cheekbones.

Donghyuck takes a shuddering gasp, staring at the older with his brown eyes, now softened with something _more._

“Mark, I-"

He collapses onto the bed, and his heart monitor starts racing faster. _Beep. Beep. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep._

Mark panics, rushing over to the help button, smashing it aggressively with his fist over and over again as Donghyuck lays on the bed, shaking and choking for air.

“Please, Hyuck, don’t leave me,” Mark pleads as he kneels next to the bed, looking his best friend in the eyes as he chokes out pink foam.

It’s silent again, until Donghyuck takes one, heaving breath, before turning his head to Mark, and grins so genuinely Mark wants to smack him like before again.

“I’m in love with you too, you idiot. I have been, for even longer than you.”

A tear trickles down his shuddering cheek, and he smiles again, closing his eyes.

_”Close your eyes, count to seven, when you wake, you’ll be in heaven.”_

“ _No!”_

Just then, the doors fly open, Donghyuck’s nurse seeing his still body on the bed, and a crying Mark, before screaming, “QUICK, GET THE RESPIRATOR!”

Nurses and doctors swarm in, carrying all different types of medical instruments and machines, and one of them quickly loops the mask over Donghyuck’s mouth.

“Is he breathing?” a nurse eyes the heart monitor, now beeping slowly, like the gradual trickle of water droplets.

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep._

The nurse holding the mask to Donghyuck’s mouth suddenly sits back, releasing their grip on the boy, and closes their eyes.

 

Mark doesn’t register it until after the doctors come in with a white sheet the size of Donghyuck.

Then, he lets out a scream.

**Author's Note:**

> wow this is bad


End file.
